Epicurean versus deceptive (“modern”) Stoic decision making

Before I came across Epicurean philosophy, I found this flow chart online. Sometimes, when I'm confused, I now find myself circling back to a similar basic structure of thought, albeit with the contents rather different, so I took it upon myself to professionally and artfully tweak the original chart to match my current thinking. Feedback and comments welcome

Quote from Cassius

What I want to think further about is whether it makes sense to elevate the "is it in my control?" to a first level division

True, and very good point. If one is powerless but enjoys thinking about something – maybe the outcome of match of one's favourite sports team – then there would be nothing wrong with that. For me – by chance – it happens to be that everything I do in fact think about but cannot change are things which make me very unhappy (primarily contemporary politics).

So, more correctly, the first question should be: "Does it cause pleasure?"

If it does bring pleasure, it should be analysed further (left half of chart).

If it does not bring pleasure, it should be avoided unless it is a feeling, in which case it should be allowed without getting lost in it (“feel through it but avoid melancholy, etc”, because suppressing feelings only causes problems down the road). This basically awards and exemption to unpleasant, but natural & necessary emotions (e.g. grief, loss). Technically, with sufficient foresight, they could be handled by the left-hand side of the chart -- but it might be valuable to grant them a special category like this, because they're usually overwhelming and have a tendency to shut down rational thought. For example, if I were given the option, I (or certainly a younger me) would probably decide that my grief is limitless (unnatural) anyway and thus to be avoided (equal parts naive to or wilfully ignorant of the fact that this will cause psychological baggage for the rest of my life), rather than allow myself to feel it, to work through the emotion (and thus trade unpleasantness now for more of a spring in my step later).

Thank you, Cassius! I feel a lot better about this revision!

Revised version:

Julia's mind-blowing realisation of what should probably have been obvious to her all along

Quote from Cassius

[…] in the fundamental abstract that the first question is always as stated in "VS71. Every desire must be confronted by this question: What will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished, and what if it is not?"

The key of VS71 is in the grammar more than the words: "is accomplished", not "is being accomplished"! VS71 places my point of view after (the completion of) the action, not during (the process of) the action. I already vaguely had this perspective in item #4 of this post, but that was almost by chance, without much explicit cognitive awareness. Here's why this distinction matters so much to me:

In my mind, these four items are (almost) entirely separate: 1. desire, 2. emotion, 3. pleasure/pain, and 4. avoidance/inclination. Pleasure/pain are two sides of the same coin, one starts where the other ends. Similarly for avoidance/inclination. (Willpower is a distinct and more complicated thing, which I think doesn't actually matter that much here.) Either way, in my mind, these four concepts/entities/… are not structured in any way that would cause me to lead a happy, or at least logical, or even safe life at all without considerable navigation and active steering.

My desires are mostly sensible, but they don't carry any drive by themself. Only when I visualise having attained them, only when I make vivid the future sensation of pleasure of having made real what I desire, does the drive materialise to direct my willpower outward and toward the pursuit of my desires. Otherwise, either nonsensical emotions continue to make me behave in dysfunctional ways (just because these emotions were once upon a time sensible as they lead to behaviour which then was adaptive) or I display no behaviour at all (such as staring at the ceiling all day long, because the action happens inwardly, inside of me).

I feel negative emotions before/during many pleasurable actions, and positive emotions before/during painful actions. Other times, I strongly avoid things which I want to do, or pursue with fortitude that which I do not want to do. Many things inside of me are rather upside-down and inside-out. For example, being talked to while I brush my teeth frightens me. (I doubt I was born that way, and I'm not recommending this; it just is how I am now.) I can, however, still analyse things cognitively according to whether they will bring me pleasure upon completion. Cognitively – upon completion:

It is much easier to correctly predict (cognitively, by thinking ahead) pleasure/pain about a result, than it is to correct my contorted feelings about an action and its result (emotionally, the feeling-ahead), let alone to correct the emotions during the action (the feeling-now).

For example, even when eating disgusts me, I still like having eaten. When I jump ahead cognitively and live in the conclusion, I can begin eating with reasonable ease and won't get too perturbed by the process, either. Once reality catches up with where I was all along – in the result, after it is done – things are just fine. This means I can do something which I otherwise avoid, because I have cognitively predicted that the result of having done it will bring me pleasure and mentally stayed in the space of that prediction – if I were to think about the process of doing it, my aversion would kick in and keep me away, even if is good for me, even if I desire it, even if I want to, even though I have considerable willpower. If I derive everything in this way, I can create a life which is capable of making me happy – but it doesn't come natural to me at all. It does – at least in the initial phase I'm still in – even cause many unpleasant emotions, which only slowly begin to subside as the first results-of-action start to trickle in, the unpleasant emotions during the actions that lead to these results begin to fade, and further yet, the first emotional expectations (rather than cognitive predictions) of pleasures-of-results begin to form, still faint and vague, but increasingly present all the same.

Emotions, desires/aversions, and avoidance/inclination are learned, whereas pleasure/pain is not, and it turns out the pleasure/pain I feel about results-of-actions never actually changed; it was merely buried. Artificially twisted consequences-to-results lead to emotions associated with action and emotions associated with consequences-to-results, but not to emotions associated with the results-as-such: e.g., doing xyz scares me, the result of xyz would be pleasurable, but the thought of it also brings fear of the consequence, such as shame. The being-scared and fear-of-shame are learned. The scaredness is attached to the action, which offers a lot of sensory anchors for emotional memory, and it is independent of a 3rd party; that's pretty hard to unlearn, because sensations remain largely the same whenever xyz is repeated. The shame is associated with a 3rd party, thus fear-of-shame is (comparatively) easy to unlearn once the source-of-twisted-consequences is gone, as there is little sensory attachment with the result or the action leading to it, rather than with particular (past) circumstances and people.

Curiously, while I am breaking the rules and mental chains of my previous life, I imagine the same basic structure at work in some premeditated crimes: e.g., robbing a bank is scary, having the money would be pleasurable, but the thought of the consequences is a deterrent. Only by focusing on the result and staying focussed on it can the emotions about/during the process and its potential consequences be overcome. Upon release from prison, being haunted by what happened during the supposed-peaceful-heist-gone-wrong and the experience gained by having done time* will amplify the deterrent. However, crucially, the predicted pleasure of suddenly having lots of money remains just the same.

This is why I know to do anything to begin with, and what to do when I do something: because “what [I will feel] if the object of my desire is accomplished” is either pleasure or pain, and unlike any emotion or value-judgement, this compass and guide has not been corrupted!

_{* (Just to clarify: According to statistics, locking people up and throwing away the key doesn't make them better members of society, but giving people ample time to work on themselves and offering them plenty of assistance with and opportunities in which to do so, including behind bars, sometimes helps some to be somewhat better.)}

Things which (in comparison) seem minor to me now, and which we seem to agree on anyway

Quote from Cassius

I think Epicurus would say that the practical implications of political issues as the affect individuals cannot be ignored, and I would personally encourage everyone to firmly maintain awareness of world affairs that could impact them, and adjust their lives accordingly.

Quote from Cassius

The time spent on feeling bad about suffering is just subtracted from your life never to come again. […]

VS10. Remember that you are mortal, and have a limited time to live, […]

[…] Some things can't be changed, but there's usually something that can be done to improve almost any situation.

I concur; however, I tend to get hung up on politics, which makes it important for me to stay out of its day-to-day affairs and focus on overall developments only. For example, there's no point in me fretting over the countless instances of misconduct of politicians, parties and press, no matter how grievous, while a war is being brewed up all over the continent.

More generally speaking, I think it is very easy to get lost in ultimately pointless things nowadays, because today information is practically endless. I need to be very careful about delineating being "comprehensively informed" (painful, paralysing, …) versus being "sufficiently informed (often also painful by itself, but necessary to ensure pleasure long-term). For example, it isn't necessary to buy the absolute best value-for-money speaker (comprehensive information required), if all I want is to sing along in the shower (sufficient information is enough).

Quote from Kalosyni

[…] which is helpful for dealing with frustration […]

It's a good chart, but neither frustration, anxiety nor tension were the issue.

Quote from Godfrey

To my understanding, desire can be considered something that motivates me. The object of one's desire is, for example, a new car or true love. Or, in my current case, dinner. What will happen to me if the object of my desire is accomplished is, ultimately, pleasure or pain.

To you and quite possibly to most people, this might be splitting hairs, but to me it makes all the difference that it is not the desired object-or-event itself which motivates me. What motivates me, is the pleasure of having accomplished my desire. For example, the knowledge that I desire a new car and true love does not motivate me one bit. What motivates me – and indeed the only thing about that which motivates me! – is the pleasure I can predict to experience once I have attained a new car or true love.

Quote from Godfrey

Desire is the motivator, pleasure/pain is the result. The only qualification is that some desires might be considered pains. But they are still a motivator in that they make you want to do something. The way that you choose to eliminate that pain can lead to either pleasure or to more pain, so it's helpful to think what categories of desire might be involved as you choose/avoid how to eliminate that pain in order to obtain the resultant pleasure.

Desire is not the motivator, according to VS71 desire is the thing to be evaluated (“Every desire must be confronted by this question: […]”). Pleasure – if it is predicted to arise from attaining the desired object-or-event – should be the motivator (pleasure is the guide to life – not desire!). In my understanding of language, a desire which was determined to lead to pain ceases to be a desire, and will henceforth be, variously, an addiction, a compulsion, a confusion, an obsession, an urge, …

Classic example for a less-motivating versus more-motivating desire:
a) “I want to lose some extra pounds, so that I can be a little healthier / fit into old jeans / ….”
b) “I want to lose some extra pounds, so that I can have a wild summer affair / date with confidence / ….”
Both sentences are logically valid (internally consistent), but (b) is typically considered to be more motivating than (a), because it emphasises what is presumed to be a pleasure. The action remains the same, but with the change in objective the predicted reward in pleasure changes.

Quote from Godfrey

At least for me, willpower is another subject.

I concur. Willpower has oddly little to do with desire/aversion, avoidance/inclination, pleasure/pain. Neurologically, there are two parallel-but-opposite dopamine-powered circuits in the basal ganglia: One which starts with and persists in an action, and one which stops with and desists from an action. The action itself is largely irrelevant, the circuit is generic. (Whether you suppress an urge say "I will not check my messages again!" or whether it is "No, I'll not eat another piece of candy!", the circuit is the same, and the strength it has gained from controlling one impulse carries over to other impulses; analogous with the start/persist.) When we are children, our parents (hopefully) give us sane rules and structure, and "learning to behave" mostly equals suppressing impulses. That builds willpower, because it is unpleasant – and pleasant actions are self-reinforcing anyway: Children rarely need to be lectured about the importance of eating all their candy.

As adults, many people have internalised "how to behave" to such a degree that any impulse to misbehave is more or less dead anyway. (What that implies is a whole new post…) What is more, many people start to design their life such that they no longer have to use their stop/desist muscles, which leads the neural circuitry to eventually weaken (synaptic long-term depression). This is why some people, as kids, could sit still and quiet in the back of their family's van for hours, but fail to stay away from that cheap chocolate bar marketing-strategically placed at the cash register for impulse buyers…

Willpower is a vague expression, but if I had to define it, I'd identify it with start/persist-&-stop/desist-ability (and that is different from fortitude, from delayed gratification, from motivation, from drive, from wanting, from tenacity, from resilience, from …).

Quote from Don

It does appear you're correct. To use Saint-Andre's translation as a starting point: […]

Thank you! I do appreciate your verification

It seems so obvious to me now: When placing myself into the future action would be a Cyrenaic position and placing myself after the future action is Epicurean, then of course I got tripped up by choosing, prioritising and planning my actions according to their outcome (Epicurean) but trying to start and accomplish them whilst fixated onto their progress (Cyrenaic).

_{(I feel like life threw me two compounding curveballs: the Stoics and 3rd wave dialectic behaviouralism, a type of “therapy” which anchors itself in the Stoics' radical acceptance and then adds "mindfulness" as an awareness of the present moment, environment, emotions and sensations – as if enduring everything wasn't enough, one has to also feel every detail of it! Now, I just do what brings me pleasure, and if doing something is itself not pleasurable, I may simply escape to the future, move my mind ahead in time, to after the task's completion, until reality catches up with me and the future pleasure I held onto finally materialises. That notion makes me very happy!)}

Quote from Godfrey

Some desires lead to pain if unfulfilled, these are natural and necessary. Some lead to net pain and these are unnatural desires. Some lead to short-term pain in order to obtain net pleasure, these I think would be considered natural and unnecessary desires.

I agree with your premise, and

Quote from Godfrey

This last category would include something like "I'm going to go work out, which I hate, and which will bring me pain. But I'm doing it for the net pleasure of fitting into my old jeans or having a wild affair or going on a ski vacation &c."

…I just want to explicate what I think you're already saying: The desire is neither the working-out (event-in-process) nor the having-worked-out (event-concluded); these cause net pain. The desire is the wearing of old jeans, which causes pleasure. Only with this pleasure is the net pain needed to obtain it outweighed, confirming the classification of wearing the old jeans as a natural-but-unnecessary desire.

What surprises me – but what I would agree with! – is that if this same person was working out for the sake of working out, that would be an unnatural desire in that person (because, without the eventual wearing of old jeans, they don't get pleasure from the workout). (That's a useful detail to me, because before this conversation, my mind's examples for unnatural (limitless) desires were still centred around "vices" like addiction and power, and didn't readily contain "virtuous actions" like workout.)

I'll have to remember that for the next cold-call about gym memberships

Quote from Cassius

Does everyone agree that "I desire to brush my teeth right now" is a perfectly acceptable ordinary English equivalent of "I choose to brush my teeth right now"?

The point is that we can use

desire = the object of desire

and we can also use

desire = choose

I cannot recall having encountered anyone who would, in their everyday ordinary speech, use "desire" to replace "want to" or "choose to". Do people say "I desire to take the trash out"?! To me, conflating "desire to" with "choose to”, “want to” or even "have to" either conjures up stilted speech in a tense situation or some sort of Victorian era dialogue.

Furthermore, for the sake of this discussion, the distinction is quite important to me, too: I never desire to brush my teeth; it's painful. What I desire is the sensation after having brushed them; that's pleasurable. That might, once again, seem like splitting hairs, but it makes all the difference between whether or not I end up doing it! Only when I call to mind and keep in mind how it is going to feel afterwards will I begin to move my mental cogs, shift where I am inside my mind, eventually move the body, get up, move towards the bathroom, and go through with it.

With repetition, this process gets easier: The ignition power required to spark it drops. Once it's begun, the various individual steps begin to fall into place more easily, increasingly happen by habit, automatically. As such, I can see how eventually I might be tempted to say "I want/choose to brush my teeth" even though I very much dislike doing that. I can also see how I might say "I have to brush my teeth", especially when I am relating that to context, eg when stressing that, say, I can't go to bed just yet, because there's still this one item left to do on my agenda.

But even at that point, I don't see myself as saying "I desire to brush my teeth". For me, that would be just as weird as saying "I desire to go to work tomorrow" even though I really don't. What I desire is shelter and orange juice. And toothpaste, I guess

If I wasn't so painstakingly clear about what it is that I desire, my entire behaviour and daily structure will soon be fragile again, prone to collapse, subject to both internal and external sources of corrosion. When I get sloppy with what I desire, the only sensible desires which continue to prevail are natural, necessary and immediate ones: food, water, sleep and shelter, but not even showering, doing dishes, or airing out the flat, and more abstract, more indirect things like work completely fly out the window anyway.

My point in saying this is not to whine or get a pat on the back; my point is that while the extend of this effect is a bit extreme in me, I am quite certain the underlying mechanics are the same for everyone. Therefore, when faced with a lack of drive, energy, motivation, consistency, structure, discipline, …, everyone might benefit from being extra clear to themselves about what it is they desire.

That might just do the trick.

Quote from Cassius

I do not view that as referring only to, or primarily to, "passionate longing"

I agree, and I also agree with that, ultimately, words always mean something a little different for everyone. But whether we call it desire or kxtzqptrr, what I wanted to stress was: It helps a lot to be precise and honest with oneself about what it truly is one wants, and why.

For the linguistically inclined, trying to grasp the word via Latin didn't get me far:
to desire, desidero, of/from the stars (figures of speech like heavenly/shooting star/…). Related with consider, considero, with the stars (less clear, but I speculate it is meant as: in agreement with the constellations).

However, looking at the Old English word which is replaced was more illuminating:
The root of wilnung (the desire; -ung is a noun-forming suffix) and wilnian (to desire; -nian is a verb-forming suffix) is still familiar to us in words like "welcome", which means "desired-one-who-came". It is rather something related to our will, our volition, related to things which we are willing to do, experience or be participant of, and related to things which we would consider well if we did, had or experienced them.

Would you consider it to be well? Then it is desirable.
Are you willing to do/have it? Then you desire doing/having it.

That's how I understand the word. That's why I do not desire to take the trash out, but I desire to have a clean kitchen so much that I endure undesirable tasks to get there – and that distinction changes everything, because taking the trash out for the sake of it is very much a Stoic attitude in my mind, which would soon make me lie in bed to stare at the ceiling all day long…

"What is desire?" reminds me of how important it is to stick closely to ordinary language, to not redefine things but to remain as close to everyday speech as possible.

Some – in my mind very mistaken – dictionary definitions of "desire" even go so far as to say desire is something sexual. If that were the case, the entirety of Epicurean philosophy would not be applicable to children, even though its central tenet is, in part, derived from observation of toddlers and piglets. If we only go so far as to define it as "passionate longing", then – keeping in mind the importance of sticking to ordinary everyday language – it also just doesn't make sense anymore. To proof that point by counterexample:

I am neither passionate about nor longing for death;
however, I very much do desire to eventually die, one way or another.
As I sit here, I don't have a passionate longing for a good death;
however, as I sit here, I'd say drifting off in my sleep would, someday, be desirable.

To me, this is sufficient proof that "desire" is much broader than "passionate longing" or, even worse, as "something related to sex". (A bit besides the point, but what would an "unnatural passionate longing" even mean? That sounds very much like what I imagine is catered to in the back room of an adult video store…)

So I'll have to very much come back to my definition based on Old English with a pinch of what, to me, is just "common sense" (in the meaning of "one just knows", obvious; ordinary, everyday language):

Quote from Julia

Would you consider it to be well? Then it is desirable.
Are you willing to do/have it? Then you desire doing/having it.

Crucially, this quasi-definition allows for things to be desired even though they are not desirable, which is a situation the word "desire" has to be able to capture; I'm not sure how this would be possible with "passionate longings": I cannot have a passionate longing for something which I am dispassionate about. That just doesn't compute in my mind.

(Of course, none of this means that a passionate longing cannot also be a desire; that something sexual cannot also be desired. However, it is not the ordinary meaning in the context of Epicurean philosophy. Just like a car, ordinarily, would be an civilian automobile, not a street car, not a baggage car, not a cable car, not an elevator car, … even though all of these can, arguably, be seen as "cars" one way or another…)